Urbandale police are investigating allegations that Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson stole an email list belonging to a home-school advocate and used it to send messages on behalf of Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign.

The criminal case, which Urbandale police officials confirmed on Thursday, mirrors allegations laid out in a civil lawsuit filed by home-school advocate Barb Heki in July.

Heki accuses Sorenson, who served as Bachmann’s Iowa campaign chairman in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, of taking the list from her computer and using it to send campaign materials to home-school families.

Heki was also working on the campaign at the time as a coordinator for home-school supporters. She says she was blamed after the emails were sent, leading to her firing from the campaign and her removal from state and national home-school advocacy boards.

Sorenson, a Republican from Milo, is serving his first term in the state Senate.

His attorney contacted the Register late Thursday to say Sorenson has not been contacted by police and suggest the Heki’s criminal theft complaint is intended to “gain some leverage” in the civil suit.

As for the civil suit, attorney Theodore Sporer said Heki was “misinformed” about Sorenson’s involvement in the Bachmann campaign’s use of the home-schooling list. He will be filing a motion in court on Sorenson’s behalf early next week, he said.

“He absolutely did not participate in taking the list and he did not personally take the list,” Sporer said. “And he most certainly did not make any public statements of any kind that represented to the public that Barb Heki gave the campaign that list or otherwise disparaged Barb Heki.”